Style Weekly - Richmond, VA local news, arts, and events., Style Weeklyhttp://www.styleweekly.com
Style Weekly is your alternative for RVA news, arts, events, restaurant reviews and classifieds.en-usCopyright 2016 Style Weekly. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Style Weekly readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Style Weekly.Colby.Rogers@pilotonline.com (Style Weekly Editor)Colby.Rogers@pilotonline.com (Style Weekly Webmaster)Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:00:01 -0500Fri, 09 Dec 2016 12:00:00 -0500Foundationhttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://www.styleweekly.com
Style Weekly - Richmond, VA local news, arts, and events., Style WeeklyStyle Weekly is your alternative for RVA news, arts, events, restaurant reviews and classifieds.http://www.styleweekly.com/imager/b/bigsquare/808579/f6dc/adminIcon_styleWkly.jpg100100Virginia Senate Leader Formally Requests Study on Decriminalizing Marijuanahttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/virginia-senate-leader-formally-requests-study-on-decriminalizing-marijuana/Content?oid=2383925
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/virginia-senate-leader-formally-requests-study-on-decriminalizing-marijuana/Content?oid=2383925Eric Hartley
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383923/marijuana.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>A month after saying he was open to studying the decriminalization of marijuana, the top elected Republican in Virginia has formally asked a key legislative commission to look into the issue.</p>
<p>State Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment had opposed decriminalization in the past.</p>
<p>But during a Nov. 1 appearance in Norfolk, he said: “I think it’s absolutely crazy that we continue to lock people up for possession of a modest amount of marijuana.”</p>
<p>In a Nov. 30 letter, Norment asked the chairman of the Virginia State Crime Commission to study the “consequences experienced” by other states that have decriminalized marijuana possession, legal and technical issues about impaired driving and the latest research on the effects of marijuana, “especially any studies indicating a correlation between its usage and that of opioids or illegal stimulants (methamphetamine and cocaine) as a possible ‘gateway’ drug.”</p>
<p align="center"><iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2IV5vXVM8fTRmE4V25GS3dxa3c/preview" width="540" height="680"></iframe></p>
<p>A study next year by the Crime Commission, which makes recommendations to the legislature, could lead to a bill in the 2018 session.</p>
<p>But there’s no guarantee the commission will agree to do a study. Its chairman, Del. Rob Bell, has opposed efforts to relax marijuana prohibition. Bell, R-Albemarle, didn’t return a call seeking comment Thursday.</p>
<p>Norment’s letter was first reported by the Daily Press.</p>
<p>The only way to force a Crime Commission study is for the General Assembly to pass a resolution ordering one.</p>
<p>Any other requests – even from a powerful leader such as Norment – are optional.</p>
<p>The commission chooses which ones to study based on its limited resources and the priorities of an “executive committee” of lawmakers, said Kristen Howard, the commission’s executive director.</p>
<p>Decriminalization is not full legalization. Under such a system, possession of marijuana would remain illegal. But it would be a civil offense akin to a traffic violation, subject to a ticket and fine – not jail and a criminal record.</p>
<p></p>
<p>In Norfolk, the latest round of debate on marijuana started in August when Councilman Paul Riddick said during a public meeting that he wanted the city to push for decriminalization.</p>
<p>All seven other council members have since said they favor the change in some form. Mayor Kenny Alexander, a former state senator, told his colleagues that pushing for a Crime Commission study is the best way to move the issue forward.</p>
<p>Alexander, a Democrat, invited Norment to speak Nov. 1 at an annual dinner where the Norfolk City Council talks about priorities it hopes to push in the upcoming state legislative session.</p>
<p>Norment, who’s from James City County, said in an interview that day that his change of heart on marijuana reflects his own education on the issue and broader cultural changes.</p>
<p>“When I speak to millennials, they see things very differently than I do,” the 70-year-old senator said.</p>
<p>A lawyer, Norment said he represents people on drug charges and has come to doubt the idea that marijuana is a gateway drug. He said decriminalization would keep people from having the “stigma” of a criminal record.</p>
<p>But Norment said it would be a challenge to get such a “cultural change” past many of his General Assembly colleagues. Norment’s Nov. 30 letter to Bell suggests studying whether other states have decriminalized possession for a first offense but kept criminal penalties for subsequent offenses.</p>
<p>The letter also asks the commission to study the “potential ramifications” of state law conflicting with federal law, which still classifies marijuana as a “Schedule I,” or entirely illegal, drug.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama has said he favors decriminalization and recently told Rolling Stone magazine marijuana should be treated as a public health issue, like cigarettes or alcohol. Obama’s administration has largely let states determine their own rules, and an increasing number have legalized medical or recreational marijuana or both.</p>
<p>But President-elect Donald Trump has said he’ll appoint Sen. Jeff Sessions, a longtime marijuana opponent, as attorney general.</p>
<p>Politico reported that Sessions said this year, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana” and called the drug “not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized.”</p>
<p>As attorney general, Sessions would be in charge of the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration and oversee all federal prosecutors in the nation.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared on PilotOnline.com.</em></p>
News & Features/News and Features
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/virginia-senate-leader-formally-requests-study-on-decriminalizing-marijuana/Content?oid=2383925&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383925
0
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 11:45:00 -0500Style WeeklyRichmond's Buskey Cider Stretches the Way You Think About Ciderhttp://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/09/richmonds-buskey-cider-stretches-the-way-you-think-about-cider
http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/09/richmonds-buskey-cider-stretches-the-way-you-think-about-ciderBrandon Fox
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383917/buskey_growler.jpg" width="867" height="570" />
<p>Strange things are going on over at Buskey Cider. You might find a few unexpected ingredients in its latest releases. </p>
<p>“We’re doing some different stuff,” founder Will Correll says. “Collaborations are interesting — they’re tons of fun and we’ve got a lot of friends in different industries.”</p>
<p>Cider exists at the nexus between beer and wine. Like wine, it’s fermented from fruit juice, but it finishes with carbonation that’s more reminiscent of beer. Cider’s flavor profile is a flexible one — it can go from dry to sweet. And because it isn’t as assertive as say, a big bold cabernet sauvignon or chocolaty porter, it can lend itself to experimentation.</p>
<p>It helps the process to have different perspectives from other industries. Buskey co-founder Matthew Meyer, who’s the head winemaker at Williamsburg Winery, brings an important layer of expertise to cider-making. Alex Steinmetz, an experienced brew master, offers a different viewpoint.</p>
<p>“Most cideries act like a brewery or act like a winery,” Correll says. “We don’t see cider as either.” </p>
<p>Buskey is about to start fermenting in wine barrels, he says. So far, in collaboration with Reservoir Distillery a few blocks away in Scott’s Addition, the cidery has only finished and aged cider in bourbon barrels. Right now, there’s a heavier, darker Trappist-style cider that’s barrel-aging. The team is ready to try something a little different.</p>
<p>Earlier in the year, Buskey and Confluence Coffee joined to produce Nitro Coffee Cider. It was a natural collaboration — Buskey already was serving nitrogen-infused cider at its tasting room, and Confluence uses the technology to produce its creamy cold-brew coffee. The result? A tangy drink with the deeper, savory flavors of coffee — and a little jolt of caffeine to go along with the alcohol. </p>
<p>Some of the more exotic ciders have been single batches made with a method more commonly used in breweries. A device filled with fruit or herbs called a Randall is hooked up between the tap line and the tap itself. The cider then flows through the flavoring ingredients, infusing it right before it hits the glass. The result has been unusual concoctions such as jalapeño-lime or mango-mint. Plus, the flavoring ingredients never touch the keg’s tap line, so an entirely different recipe can be whipped up and served from the rest of the keg, if that’s what the folks at Buskey feel like doing that day.</p>
<p>For the holidays, Correll says, the cidery is releasing a cranberry-basil variety. “The idea for putting seasoning in came last Christmas before we were open,” he says. “My sister asked me if I’d make a cider to match the turkey — she asked for rosemary-thyme cider. It turned out great.” </p>
<p>Some of Buskey’s most popular innovations have been hopped ciders. Given the scarcity and price of hops, it’s expensive to produce, Correll says, but Citra-hopped cider has been a big hit. Steinmetz also is experimenting with Cascade hops in a spontaneously fermented cider — a method similar to the one used to make sour beers. </p>
<p>By mid-January, Buskey should have its cider in cans and on store shelves — small local spots at first and larger stores in the spring. At the taproom, the experimentation will continue.</p>
<p>“We can come up with an idea and have that product done and selling in a couple of weeks,” Correll says.</p>
Special/Signature Issues/RVA Growler
http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/09/richmonds-buskey-cider-stretches-the-way-you-think-about-cider?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383918
0
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 11:30:00 -0500Style WeeklyPick: VCU Staging Stories From Richmond Jail This Weekendhttp://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/08/vcu-staging-stories-from-richmond-jail-this-weekend
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/08/vcu-staging-stories-from-richmond-jail-this-weekendBrent Baldwin
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383783/cache-10259-0x0.jpg" width="620" height="413" />
<p>In November of 2015, Style Weekly ran an <a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/book-excerpt-writing-our-way-out-memoirs-from-jail/Content?oid=2260685">excerpt</a> from "Writing Our Way Out: Memoirs from Jail," collected by Virginia Commonwealth University associate professor David Coogan from ten people incarcerated in Richmond's jail.
<p>This weekend, VCU students will be bringing those stories to the stage.
<p>The theatrical version of "Writing Our Way Out" will run Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. (with the book's authors in discussion) and 7 p.m. at VCU’s Shafer Street Playhouse. The shows are free and open to the public.
<p>The monologue-driven play tells the personal stories of the writers and how they came into the local justice system and how it subsequently shaped their lives.
<p>Here's more from VCU public affairs writer, Brian McNeil:
<p><blockquote>“These are real people’s lives, and their stories that have not been appreciated,” said co-director Sarah Velasco-Kent, a sophomore theatre performance major in the School of the Arts’ Department of Theatre. “We’re hoping to give a voice to people who have been silenced and start a conversation about topics that are really, really prevalent today — mass incarceration, the pipeline to prison, the really negative connotation with being in prison and having a rap sheet and being a felon.”
<p>“This is an opportunity for education, but also for conversation,” said co-director Taneasha White, a senior English major in the College of Humanities and Sciences. “We're opening the floor up for everyone to have a discourse with the cast, the authors and anyone else who chooses to be involved during the talkback on Saturday.”
<p>“We want you to go home and look up mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex, and see how it’s affecting your country in multiple, horrifying ways,” White said. “Look up how race plays a vital role. Then go out and try to change some policies. Or go out and volunteer at your local jail or with a re-entry program like OAR or donate to Sanctuary. There’s a couple million people that we've just completely been accustomed to ignoring, and that’s a huge problem.”
</blockquote>
<p>The original book version grew out of a creative writing workshop led by Coogan, which eventually led to the formation of the Open Minds program, a partnership between Richmond City Sheriff's Office and VCU that offers dual enrollment classes at Richmond City Justice Center, according to a school release.
Arts & Events/Studio Blog
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/08/vcu-staging-stories-from-richmond-jail-this-weekend?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383785
0
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:45:00 -0500Style WeeklyLight That Fire: Six Richmond Winter Seasonal Beers to Warm Your Solsticehttp://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/08/light-that-fire-six-richmond-winter-seasonal-beers-to-warm-your-solstice
http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/08/light-that-fire-six-richmond-winter-seasonal-beers-to-warm-your-solsticeAnnie Tobey
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383755/steam_bell_dawson.jpg" width="867" height="570" />
<p>Winter seasonals offer beer-lovers an adjunct to hibernation. Cravings shift to richer, deeper beers, to strong ales suitable for sipping such as imperial stouts, flavored porters, barley wines and bocks, some barrel-aged and others with tastes of the holiday. The Richmond area’s newest breweries have your winter cravings covered.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Dam Sturgeon</strong><br>
10.3 percent alcohol<br>
<a href="http://www.ammobrewing.com/">Ammo Brewing, Petersburg</a></p>
<p>The smooth, rich, creamy malt notes of this imperial chocolate stout can make you feel as if you’re floating gracefully across the stage like the Nutcracker prince, while the daring, dark, smoky flavor conjures visions of the Mouse King. Because Ammo doesn’t yet distribute, you’ll need to visit its Old Town Petersburg taproom for the full experience. </p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Dark Ages Imperial Maple Brown</strong><br>
8.7 percent alcohol<br>
<a href="http://castleburgbrewery.com/">Castleburg Brewery & Taproom, Richmond</a></p>
<p>A hint of roast from brown malts, the sweet, earthy tasty of Vermont maple syrup and a hint of cinnamon — this rich, imperial ale is reminiscent of wandering through a quiet forest on an early winter afternoon. Castleburg has taken the recipe from its award-winning Bishop’s Brown Ale and added malt and seasonal flavorings. The brewery isn’t distributing yet, so you’ll need to enjoy Dark Ages in the tasting room or at home by the fireplace with a growler by your side. </p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Coffee Milk Stout</strong><br>
5 percent alcohol<br>
<a href="http://www.stonebrewing.com/visit/outposts/richmond">Stone Brewing Co., Richmond</a></p>
<p>Making this seasonal release even more special, the coffee that tantalizes your tongue as you sip this smooth milk stout comes from local coffee company Lamplighter Roasting Co. The touch of bitterness from the coffee — apparent but not overwhelming — and the creamy sweetness of the milk sugars make bittersweet a pleasure. Big in taste, deceptively low in alcohol.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Lucky 45 Graham Cracker Porter</strong><br>
6.8 percent alcohol<br>
Trapezium Brewing Co., Petersburg</p>
<p>Richer than the average porter, Trapezium’s dark seasonal beer leaves the taste of honey grahams on the back of the palate, like a chocolate-covered cookie. Pair it with a brick-oven pizza from the Trapezium kitchen or look for it at other Petersburg restaurants for a trip beyond the familiar.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Belsnickel Weizenbock</strong><br>
8 percent alcohol<br>
<a href="http://www.kindredspiritbrewing.com/">Kindred Spirit Brewing, Goochland</a></p>
<p>Inspired by the crotchety German Christmas folklore figure — see YouTube for Dwight’s memorable portrayal in “The Office” — Kindred Spirit’s wheat bock offers a full-bodied mouth feel with spicy, clovelike notes and a rich, satisfying malty finish. Per German guidelines, this amber beer is made with 50 percent wheat and with ale yeast. </p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>The Dawson Sweet Potato Ale</strong><br>
6.5 percent alcohol<br>
<a href="http://www.steambell.beer/">Steam Bell Beer Works, Chesterfield</a></p>
<p>The ubiquitous sweet potato casserole isn’t always a welcome guest at family holidays. Such is the tale behind the Dawson, named for founder Brad Cooper’s grandmother, who tried in vain to appeal to her grandchildren with a variety of holiday dishes with the bright orange root vegetable as star. Finally, Cooper says, he found a worthy sweet potato recipe — in a beer. Brewed with an amber ale base, it presents a caramel nose and finish, with a touch of earthiness from sweet potatoes, squash, sorghum syrup and toasted pumpkin seeds — yet without the spices that can sometimes overpower seasonal gourd-based beers. </p>
Special/Signature Issues/RVA Growler
http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/08/light-that-fire-six-richmond-winter-seasonal-beers-to-warm-your-solstice?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383747
0
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 11:30:00 -0500Style WeeklyRichmond Region Gets Shelter for Victims of Human Traffickinghttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmond-region-gets-shelter-for-victims-of-human-trafficking/Content?oid=2383741
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmond-region-gets-shelter-for-victims-of-human-trafficking/Content?oid=2383741Jackie Kruszewski
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383757/human_trafficking_b.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>The story of Deena underscored the mission behind the opening of the region’s first shelter dedicated to female victims of human trafficking Wednesday.</p>
<p>When the woman came to Safe Harbor, which helps survivors of sexual and domestic abuse, she was “outraged, brutally beaten and emotionally abused,” said Cheryl Hunt, the nonprofit’s director of safe houses.</p>
<p>“She asked me, ‘How could he do this me?’” Hunt recalled, “as she pointed to her bloody mouth and her missing teeth. Deena told me: ‘I refuse to work the streets for him anymore. After 14 years, I am done.’”</p>
<p>Deena’s experience was among those shared during the opening of the shelter, a project of Safe Harbor and Bon Secours Richmond Health System. Stories were told of women who not only were abused, but also sexually trafficked by people who forced or coerced their labor. This kind of modern-day slavery is on the rise.</p>
<p>The shelter, which officially welcomes residents in January, is unique in its combination of counseling and medical services and their relationship with law enforcement, officials said.</p>
<p>In the past, victims would have been brought to Safe Harbor’s domestic violence shelter, said Cathy Easter, executive director of Safe Harbor.</p>
<p>“When we didn’t have space there,” she said, “the only option would be to house them in a hotel, which is the worst place, because that’s where they were victimized. So that’s like putting them back where they experienced all their trauma.”</p>
<p>Eighty percent of human trafficking involves sexual exploitation, according to law-enforcement statistics, with 50 percent of victims younger than 16.</p>
<p>Women who come to Safe Harbor can come from all over the world, according to the nonprofit, but the majority is from the United States. Putting them in facilities outside the state makes criminal prosecution and testimony against the trafficker more difficult.</p>
<p>“In Henrico County, in the past three or four years, they’ve had 30 victims, and they’ve gone to shelters outside of the state -- Louisiana, Oklahoma,” Easter said -- but they’d have to return to testify, creating a complicated situation logistically.</p>
<p>The shelter is funded partly through a $500,000 grant from Virginia’s Department of Criminal Justice Services. It will have eight beds, and Safe Harbor estimates that there will be 15 residents in 2017. Capacity will increase to 25 in 2018.</p>
News & Features/News and Features
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmond-region-gets-shelter-for-victims-of-human-trafficking/Content?oid=2383741&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383741
0
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 11:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyPJ Harvey Performing at The National In Aprilhttp://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/07/pj-harvey-performing-at-the-national-in-april
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/07/pj-harvey-performing-at-the-national-in-aprilStaff
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383645/pj.jpg" width="1200" height="800" />
<p>Fresh off a recent Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album, PJ Harvey is plotting her biggest North American tour in nearly a decade and Richmond’s the National made the cut.
<p>Harvey will perform here touring behind “The Hope Six Demolition Project” on Saturday, April 22 with doors at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 in advance, or $50 at the door for the all-ages show. They go on-sale Friday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m.
<p>Reviews have been strong for the album, the Los Angeles Times wrote:
<p><blockquote>"Rhythms, in the form of militant drum beats, create a boots-on-the-ground feel. Guitars, jagged and fiery, cut through the groove like a fist in the air. And saxophones are raw, dirty and ready to howl… If times are tough, Harvey seemed to be saying, we may as well go down swinging.”</blockquote>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jjl14sLjOTU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Arts & Events/Studio Blog
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/07/pj-harvey-performing-at-the-national-in-april?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383647
0
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:20:00 -0500Style WeeklyFive Don’t-Miss Holiday Events for Richmond Beer Lovershttp://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/07/five-dont-miss-holiday-events-for-richmond-beer-lovers
http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/07/five-dont-miss-holiday-events-for-richmond-beer-loversBrandon Fox
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383617/santa_beer.jpg" width="900" height="592" />
<p><strong>Thursday, Dec. 8</strong><br>
Christmas caroling has fallen by the wayside, but if you’re in the mood to belt out a few bars of “Joy to the World” or softly sing “Away in the Manger” — with feeling — while raising a glass with a few friends and friends-to-be, Center of the Universe Brewing Co. can make that happen. You don’t need talent, but you do need enthusiasm for a Beer and Hymns Christmas taking place on Thursday, Dec. 8, from 6-8:30 p.m. <a href="cotubrewing.com">cotubrewing.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Friday, Dec. 9</strong><br>
It was Dec. 5, 1933, and Congress, after 13 long years, finally ended Prohibition. If you think that’s a date worth remembering, you’re not alone. Blue Bee Cider wants to celebrate with you at its new digs in Scott’s Addition. It has asked James River Cellars Winery, Isley Brewing Co. and Black Heath Meadery to join them, and you can enjoy the local libations with a few hors d’oeuvres while you tap your toe to live music. And for those who really want to drill down on the Prohibition-ending 21st Amendment, the Virginia Historical Society will be there at 7 p.m. to provide all the details. The celebration takes place on Friday, Dec. 9, and will last from 6-9 p.m. <a href="http://www.bluebeecider.com/">bluebeecider.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Saturday, Dec. 10</strong><br>
If you love beer, you probably have someone else in your life who’s pretty fond of it, too. Sure, you can wrap up just about anything and palm it off as a holiday gift, but if someone is expecting a little something from you this year, you can head over to Ardent Craft Ales on Saturday, Dec. 10, between 1-6 p.m. for its annual Beer Craft Market. You can pick up artisan-made openers, fancy growlers, glasses and beer-centric art. Added bonus: Ardent will release a limited run of Imperial Milk Stout, too. <a href="http://ardentcraftales.com/">ardentcraftales.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Saturday, Dec. 17</strong><br>
Richmond chefs and bakers are firing up their ovens — or at least, thinking about it. On Saturday, Dec. 17, from noon-4 p.m., the Answer Brewpub will throw a party for Terrapin Beer Co.’s Wake ‘n’ Bake-Off. Brew Gastropub, the Camel, Goodrich Gourmet Catering Co., Idle Hands Bread Co., Sergio’s Pizza and Italian Restaurant, Tricycle Gardens and Uptown Market & Deli will whip up special dishes that include a not-so-secret ingredient, Terrapin beer. You can expect live music and an auction that includes a corn hole set, backpacks and gifts, with 10 percent of the proceeds to benefit the Richmond SPCA. <a href="http://theanswerbrewpub.com/">theanswerbrewpub.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Monday, Dec. 19</strong><br>
Garden Grove Brewing Co’s ongoing Taproom Dinner Series will host Dutch and Co.’s Caleb Shriver and Phillip Perrow and their new American cuisine for a five-course dinner paired with the brewery’s beer at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 19. Tickets are $38 plus tax and tip. Reservations are required. <a href="http://gardengrovebrewing.com/">gardengrovebrewing.com</a>.<br>
</p>
Special/Signature Issues/RVA Growler
http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/07/five-dont-miss-holiday-events-for-richmond-beer-lovers?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383618
0
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:45:00 -0500Style WeeklyWeekly Food Notes: Openings, Closings, Ice Cream + Morehttp://www.styleweekly.com/ShortOrderBlog/archives/2016/12/07/weekly-food-notes-openings-closings-ice-cream-more
http://www.styleweekly.com/ShortOrderBlog/archives/2016/12/07/weekly-food-notes-openings-closings-ice-cream-moreBrandon Fox
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383608/short_order_teaser.jpg" width="240" height="158" style="display:block; float:right;" />
<p><b>Openings:</b> <a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/demis-brings-a-new-mediterranean-restaurant-to-north-side/Content?oid=2383161
">North Side will soon be home to Demi’s</a>, a Mediterranean grill that will be situated across the street from owners Jimmy and Daniella Tsamouras’ other restaurant, Dot’s Back Inn. </p>
<p>Things are going well for Flyin’ Pig Backyard Grill and Asado’s owners. <a href="http://richmondbizsense.com/2016/12/05/flying-pig-asado-owners-to-open-third-eatery-in-midlothian/
">They plan to open Wood & Iron Gameday in the old Brew Gastropub space</a> at the Shoppes at Bellgrade in Midlothian, Richmond BizSense reports. </p>
<p>Charm School, the much anticipated ice-cream store, is opening this week in the old Quirk Gallery spot. Right now, its hours are limited to Thursdays noon-9 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays noon-11 p.m., and Sundays noon-9 p.m. <a href="http://www.charmschoolrva.com">charmschoolrva.com</a>. </p>
<p><a href="
http://www.richmond.com/business/local/article_faec38c4-bc81-5861-8d1a-30d35827915e.html
">A teeny, tiny brewery will open in Hanover</a>, the Times-Dispatch reports. Intermission Beer Co. will open next to a Goodyear Auto Service Center, near Virginia Center Commons, reports the Times-Dispatch</a>. <a href="http://www.intermissionbeer.com">intermissionbeer.com</a>. </p>
<p><b>Closings:</b> Then there were four. <a href="http://www.richmond.com/food-drink/restaurant-news/article_b2da244b-ae5f-58a4-a4cf-238882f69024.html
">The Urban Farmhouse Market & Café on the corner of Broad and Gilmer streets by VCU is now closed</a> after a little over a year since opening. Another market and cafe is planned for Linden Row Inn, and it will open in January, the Times-Dispatch reports</a>. <a href="http://www.theurbanfarmhouse.net">theurbanfarmhouse.net</a>. </p>
<p>Congratulations! <a href="http://www.opentable.com/m/best-restaurants-in-america-for-2016/
">Open Table named L’Opossum as one of the country’s best 100 restaurants</a>, while <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/food-and-wine/2016/11/22/americas-famous-pie-shops/94318092/
">Proper Pie is one of America's legendary pie shops</a>, according to USA Today. </p>
<p><b>Happenings</b>: Perly’s Delicatessen and Restaurant will host the Richmond SPCA’s monthly supper club tonight. Pet-lovers are encouraged to make a reservation and dine, with 15 percent of the proceeds going to the nonprofit. <a href="https://www.richmondspca.org/supperclub">richmondspca.org</a>. </p>
<p>Have a tipple with your favorite Christmas guy at Quirk’s Boozy Santa Brunch on Saturday, Dec. 10, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Reservations are recommended. <a href="http://www.quirkhotel.com">quirkhotel.com</a>. </p>
<p>There are a trio of beer/cider events happening this week. For more details, <a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/RVAGrowler/archives/2016/12/07/five-dont-miss-holiday-events-for-richmond-beer-lovers">follow this link to the RVA Growler page</a>. </p>
Food & Drink/Short Order Blog
http://www.styleweekly.com/ShortOrderBlog/archives/2016/12/07/weekly-food-notes-openings-closings-ice-cream-more?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383609
0
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:25:00 -0500Style WeeklyComedian Chris Rock Coming To Altria in Marchhttp://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/06/comedian-chris-rock-coming-to-altria-in-march
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/06/comedian-chris-rock-coming-to-altria-in-marchStaff
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383329/image001web.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>Big-name comedian Chris Rock will be performing his first stand-up tour in nine years, The Total Blackout Tour 2017, in Richmond. Rock performs at the Altria Theater on Sunday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m.
<p>Rock first gained a level of fame for his show, "The Chris Rock Show," which featured the writing talents of Richmond native Bryan Tucker, now co-head writer at "Saturday Night Live."
<p>Tickets for the Rock show go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 9 at the Altria Theater and Dominion Arts Center box offices, by phone at (800) 514-3849 and at Livenation.com and etix.com. Tickets range from $49.50 to $125 plus applicable fees.
<p>Rock recently earned $40 million for a pair of upcoming Netflix comedy specials, so he should be in a good mood. The American leg of the world tour kicks off in Durham, NC.
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SZ8_49BRSiw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Arts & Events/Studio Blog
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/06/comedian-chris-rock-coming-to-altria-in-march?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383334
1
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 11:30:00 -0500Style WeeklySoul Santa Appears at the Black History Museum of Virginiahttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/soul-santa-appears-at-the-black-history-museum-of-virginia/Content?oid=2383271
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/soul-santa-appears-at-the-black-history-museum-of-virginia/Content?oid=2383271Jason Roop
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383270/news49_santa.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>Samika Byars introduces her 8-month-old, Rachel Byers, to Soul Santa on Saturday at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.</p>
<p>The idea is to offer up a holiday icon whose appearance doesn’t necessarily mirror popular culture’s traditional image of him — as the Mall of America did in hiring its first black Santa last week.</p>
<p>But the children seem to have their minds elsewhere.</p>
<p>“I want a baby doll,” says Matazia, 7, while waiting in line. Her 4-year-old brother, Prince Anthony, says he’s hoping for Pokemon.</p>
<p>As for skin color, says Barbara Henry, aka Mrs. Claus: “It never was an issue. The kids never said anything about the difference.”</p>
<p>She and her husband accepted the opportunity to volunteer when approached about the position nine years ago at Sixth Mouth Zion Baptist Church. It’s become an experience full of special moments with children of all races, ages and abilities, they say.</p>
<p>“I love to see them smile,” Santa says. “It lets me know they’re comfortable.”</p>
<p>Children also had the opportunity to choose a free book, courtesy of the Sistahs Book Club of Richmond. “We want to share the gift of reading to members of our community,” its president, Barbara Winston, says.</p>
<p>Soul Santa again will be available to see children, who receive a free photo with him, noon to 4 on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the museum at 122 W. Leigh St.</p>
News & Features/News and Features
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/soul-santa-appears-at-the-black-history-museum-of-virginia/Content?oid=2383271&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383271
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 10:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyStevie Winwood and Katt Williams Shows Announcedhttp://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/05/stevie-winwood-and-katt-williams-shows-announced
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/05/stevie-winwood-and-katt-williams-shows-announcedStaff
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383114/large.244885q0654j.jpeg" width="800" height="532" />
<p>Classic rock fans rejoice: <a href="http://www.stevewinwood.com/">Stevie Winwood</a>, the soulful British voice from groups Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group ("Gimme Some Lovin'"), will be performing at the Carpenter Theatre at Dominion Arts Center on May 2 at 7:30 p.m.
<p>Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. this Friday, Dec. 9 and can be purchased at Dominion Arts Center and Altria Theater box offices, by phone at 800-514-3849 or online at etix.com. Prices range from $69 to $89.
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xcxYX8KPhGk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hRkG8TRpy1M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Also announced today was a show by comedian <a href="http://kattwilliams.com/">Katt Williams</a> to be held at the Richmond Coliseum on Friday, April 7. The tickets also go on sale this Friday, Dec. 9 and can be purchased at the SweetFrog box office at the Richmond Coliseum, by phone at 800-745-3000 or online at Ticketmaster.com.
<p>Williams is approaching his 20th anniversary and will be embarking on the "Conspiracy Theory" tour. Ticket prices for this show range from $54 to $127.
<p>Williams was <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/katt-williams-5-years-probation-march-assault-charges-article-1.2896354">recently sentenced to five years probation</a> after pleading no contest to assault and battery charges stemming from an incident involving his bodyguard in Georgia.
<p>The below video is NSFW, obvs.
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kLDitGAUrno" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Arts & Events/Studio Blog
http://www.styleweekly.com/Studi/archives/2016/12/05/stevie-winwood-and-katt-williams-shows-announced?show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383130
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 05:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyThe Palace in Ginter Parkhttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-palace-in-ginter-park/Content?oid=2383333
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-palace-in-ginter-park/Content?oid=2383333Edwin Slipek
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383323/feat49_house_2016.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
Six generations called it home, but now the Worsham family is moving on.
<p class="dropcaps ascending">There’s no ordinary move underway at the home of Gibson and Charlotte Worsham. This is a dramatic change that’s been more than a century in the making. </p>
<p>Since their family finished the house in 1914, six generations have lived here on Brook Road in Ginter Park. It’s unlikely that any other household in Richmond can match such a continuous generational residency at one address.</p>
<p>But this legacy is about to change. The Worshams are preparing to sell their 7,158-square-foot house (including full basement), downsize, and move to rural Fluvanna County.</p>
<p>The result, for now, is organized chaos. For weeks they’ve pulled treasures and ephemera from the attic and other storage areas. They’ve also made some discoveries, including two trunks that have been locked for decades.</p>
<p></p>
<p class="dropcaps ascending">I’ve been visiting the Worsham house for 57 years of its 102-year existence.</p>
<p>As a boy, I first approached the elegant Italianate mansion with its distinctive Venetian red stucco exterior after school one autumn day. It was my first piano lesson with Sarah Worsham Landrum. I recall crunching yellow maple leaves that covered the worn, boxwood-lined brick sidewalk. After ascending the two marble steps to the terrazzo-paved porch, I rang the doorbell and peered through the glass windows of the double front doors. Landrum glided toward the entry and swung open the door. “Come in,” she cooed. </p>
<p>Sarah, as everyone addressed her, was an indomitable and handsome woman. She kept her slightly graying hair in a tight bun, and her smooth, pale complexion was her reward for a lifetime of minimum sun exposure. She was justly proud of her figure. When she didn’t wear makeup, it was because she’d been at ballet class — where she must have been five times older than her fellow students.</p>
<p>Her instructor was Julia Mildred Harper, another Ginter Park grande dame. As neighborhood old-timers proudly reminded you, back in the 1940s she taught dance to Shirley MacLaine and her brother, Warren Beatty — whose first film in 15 years, “Rules Don’t Apply,” opens this month. They lived here while their father was a Richmond school principal.</p>
<p>Just inside the Worsham house was a broad front hall that was dominated by a grand staircase. The hallway’s walls, like those of the living and dining rooms, were painted a wild shade of aqua. It was a hue harkening back to the over-the-top, but timeless good taste of designer Dorothy Draper’s 1940s interior treatment of the Greenbrier Hotel.</p>
<p>In the perfectly proportioned living room, crisp, white cotton curtains hung from the windows and puddled on the wooden floors. In the summertime, the upholstered furniture was slipcovered in similar fabrics. Three pianos once jockeyed for space in the living room, including a grand that was lodged opposite a huge fireplace with an impressive mahogany mantle. </p>
<p>Most sessions when my lesson was ending, Sarah’s husband, John “Cotton” Landrum, arrived home from his office and headed to the book-filled den to switch on the television. </p>
<p>Bell Worsham, Sarah’s sister, who lived there too, would exit the den — her painting studio by day — as the light faded to dusk. Bell had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1920s. She graduated in 1939 from Richmond Professional Institute, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University, and also studied art in Europe on a prestigious fellowship.</p>
<p>One of the pleasures of the Worsham house is a fresco that graces a block wall of a basement corridor. Bell favored realism — her work was akin to the Ash Can painters — and was never tempted toward abstract expressionism. Her portraits, especially of family members, hung throughout the house. Many of them featured Sarah, often wearing one of her trademark hats. Bell never married.</p>
<p>Alberta Reid, the cook and housekeeper, a native of Goochland County, whom the Worshams had employed since Bell and Sarah were little, usually was busy in the kitchen.</p>
<p></p>
<p class="dropcaps">Along with Christmas and special parties, the Worsham manse never shined brighter than the occasion of piano recitals. While some of my siblings and friends took lessons from other Ginter Park instructors, such as Sarah Brown or Mamie O’Flaherty Stone, no one produced extravagant recitals like Sarah.</p>
<p>For each program she had students learn compositions, simple or difficult, depending on their proficiency, by the same classical composer. It was usually on a major milestone, say an anniversary of Johan Sebastian Bach’s birth or Frédéric Chopin’s death. </p>
<p>The Worsham house was transformed into a candlelit salon, a palace, and students donned appropriate period costume.</p>
<p>For the Franz Joseph Haydn recital, I portrayed the maestro. My 6-year-old brother, Randall, who played the clarinet, was costumed in 18th-century finery as Haydn’s patron Prince Esterhazy. Throughout the recital he sat frozen at Sarah’s side. She wore a full-length gown and tiara to portray Haydn’s patroness, the Empress Maria Teresa. Sarah’s sister, Bell, was dressed in an explosively colorful outfit to represent the Austrian peasant class.</p>
<p>Regardless of the composer, era or nationality, recital refreshments were the same — a punch mixed of orange juice and ginger ale, in equal amounts, and a large sheet cake from the nearby Belle Bakery with the composer’s name and life dates inscribed in contrasting frosting.</p>
<p>Of all the recitals, the highlight was a staged performance of the opera “Lohengrin,” which was performed on the back lawn against a backdrop of thick bamboo. Better at theatrics than piano performance, I made the iconic swan boat — a contraption attached to a Radio Flyer wagon. It magically glided across the yard pulled by an inflatable swan, which included me crawling along under a sheet. Piano student Sarah Wendt played the role of Elsa while a be-helmeted Harrison Marks, neighbor and football ace at John Marshall High, had the title role. The June afternoon of the performance was hot and hardly Wagnerian, but the student-performed music had been pre-taped — thoroughly modern for early ’60s.</p>
<p>Over the years, I’ve often wondered about the fate of that swan boat, but no more. Charlotte and Gibson Worsham, Bell and Sarah’s nephew, have lived in the house since the late 1990s. And they recently found the prop in the attic as they were preparing to put the house up for sale.</p>
<p>Lohengrin’s conveyance was discovered among hundreds of other items that had accumulated for more than a century — furniture, books, intriguing lamps, ornate baby carriages, scores of Bell Worsham’s paintings, and fascinating bric-a-brac. </p>
<p>There also were two mysterious trunks that had never been opened during the time of anyone still living.</p>
<p>I approach the house on a recent afternoon to visit the Worshams as they prepare for their move. Their 3-year-old grandson, John Lee Worsham, bounds around a corner when Gibson comes to the door.</p>
<p>The interior has been changed a bit. The aqua is gone. The front hall and living room are painted taupe while a paint color explained to me as Schwarzschild blue covers the dining room walls. </p>
<p>“We wanted to mix things up,” Gibson, an architect at Glave & Holmes, says.</p>
<p>Hundreds of items from the attic occupy available surfaces. After we settle onto comfortable, facing sofas in a makeshift conversation area, Charlotte maneuvers tea and Gibson explains the lineage of his soon-to-be former family home.</p>
<p></p>
<p class="dropcaps">The house and the one-acre grounds at Brook Road and Walton Avenue was purchased by Gibson’s grandparents, George Gibson “Gib” Worsham and Julia Piltcher Worsham in 1913. It was nothing but an unfinished shell, having been abandoned since 1908 when its builder had financial trouble. To complete the project he’d begun earlier, the Worshams engaged prominent local architect Charles M. Robinson, famous for his designs of numerous Virginia schools and colleges.</p>
<p>Gib Worsham had joined the staff of the Richmond Times newspaper, a precursor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, owned by Joseph Bryan, in the late 1890s. He’d installed the first linotype, or typesetting, machines in Richmond. He soon left to start his own paper, The Richmond News. Among the entrepreneur’s real estate interests was building the Richmond Coliseum — not the sports and concert venue — but a building that housed a roller-skating rink and an exhibition hall. It’s now an apartment complex, on West Broad near Bowe Street. Around 1911, Gib sold his newspaper and opened the Richmond Press, a printing company that specialized in journals and other publications. He also liked Richmond antiquities.</p>
<p>“Grandfather recycled everything,” says his grandson, Gibson, with considerable understatement.</p>
<p>We’re not talking old newsprint. The elder Worsham salvaged four large iron gates that once surrounded the former Customs House, now the Lewis Powell Federal Courts Building, which had served as the Confederate treasury. A few blocks away, when the historic Exchange Hotel was demolished, Gib hauled home black and white marble flooring from its lobby.</p>
<p>“Writers William Thackeray and Charles Dickens walked on those tiles when they stayed there,” Gibson says.</p>
<p>Gib’s wife, Julia Piltcher Worsham, who had graduated from Hollins College, was a clubwoman and a co-founder of the Ginter Park Baptist Church. </p>
<p>In 1914 when the Worshams moved into their new Ginter Park house, Gib’s widower father, John H. Worsham, moved in with them. After being wounded while serving in the Confederate army, he wrote a highly regarded memoir, “One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry.” After settling in Scottsville, he worked as a grocer and bookkeeper and operated two boats that plied the James River and Kanawha Canal between Albemarle County and Richmond — the Albemarle and the Mary Bell.</p>
<p>The third generation of Worshams to live at 3601 Brook Road were the children of Gib and Julia Worsham: Bell, Sarah and John, Gibson’s father. After marrying, John moved a few blocks away with his bride, the former Margaret “Peggy” Curry.</p>
<p>Sarah, upon graduation from Hollins College and after piano studies with noted Virginia composer and pianist John Powell (“He didn’t take just anyone as a student,” Gibson says), she married her long-time beau, “Cotton” Landrum.</p>
<p>“He’d been a football star at the University of Richmond and was the real love of her life,” Gibson says. During World War II, the couple lived in Nebraska when he served in the Army. They later moved to the Worsham house where they lived out their lives under roof with her sister, artist Bell.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Upon their deaths, Gibson’s parents, John and Margaret Worsham, moved into the Brook Road house. Gibson and his brother, Curry, had graduated from college.</p>
<p>Gibson Worsham and Charlotte Schneider met in Kentucky, where they were working with a historic preservation organization, and were married in 1981. </p>
<p>Charlotte says she was always charmed by her husband’s talented aunts, especially Bell, and enjoyed visiting them. “Both were always at the door to welcome us as they welcomed everybody.”</p>
<p>After working in Boston for a number of years, Gibson and Charlotte settled in Yellow Sulphur Springs, near Christiansburg, while Gibson worked on a master’s degree in architectural history at the University of Virginia and built an architecture practice.</p>
<p>They reared their four sons in the Virginia mountains, home-schooling Richard, Charles, Braxton and Stephen. The family spent the time from Christmas to Easter with their grandparents, John and Peggy Worsham, in Ginter Park. </p>
<p>Now grown, the interests and careers of that fifth generation of Worshams to live at the family place have taken them to far-flung places.</p>
<p>Richard, the eldest, is married and lives in Goshen, Indiana, where he manufactures motorcycles inspired by classic 1920s designs through his company, Janus American Motorcycle. His brother, Braxton, works in Richmond for Relay Foods in customer relations. Stephen, who builds yachts, lives in New York.</p>
<p>Charles, an Army veteran, lives part-time in Alaska. While he’s on assignment for an oil company as a security contractor on the Arctic north slope, his son, John Lee, lives with his grandparents, thus becoming the sixth generation of Worshams to live on Brook Road.</p>
<p>With their family grown and spread out, Gibson and Charlotte are downsizing and tackling new adventures. That includes moving to Fluvanna County, where they’re restoring a 19th-century farmhouse.</p>
<p>“We polled everybody, each of our sons,” says Gibson. “And while everybody agreed they didn’t want us to sell, none of them wanted to take this on.”</p>
<p>“There’s definitely a lot of tradition here,” says Charles, 29. “At one time or another, as my brothers and I transitioned, I’ve lived in almost each of the four bedrooms. And growing up, I especially enjoyed the back passageways and other alternative routes in the house.”</p>
<p>These include a secret door that his father included in his redesign of the den some years ago. He also recalls the boxwood maze, vegetable garden and chicken coop.</p>
<p>As his father said for a story in Style 20 years ago, “I don’t think they realize how unconventional their lives are.” </p>
<p></p>
<p class="dropcaps ascending">As for the two mysterious, locked trunks in the attic, Why had they never been unlocked?</p>
<p>“I like having a little mystery,” Gibson says. But the move prompted their opening.</p>
<p>Inside one of them, a stylish trunk embossed with the initials, S.W., for Sarah Worsham, was the Army uniform issued to Uncle “Cotton” Landrum during World War II.</p>
<p>“Apparently, the trunk hadn’t been opened since Sarah and Cotton returned from Nebraska,” Gibson says.</p>
<p>And what was in the other locked trunk?</p>
<p></p>
<p>After a number of attempts to pry it open, they found the belongings that John H. Worsham had brought back with him from the Civil War — his jacket and military-issued trousers. The discoveries were especially poignant because the family has a photograph of him in that uniform. There was also a quilt “in wonderful shape,” Charlotte says.</p>
<p>And finally, there were two bottles of liquor, one rum and one whiskey, partially filled and with the original label on the bottles from the R.L Christian & Co.</p>
<p>“He must have put all of that behind him,” Gibson says, referring to his great grandfather’s Confederate service and taking an occasional swig of liquor after moving to 3601 Brook Road with his son and daughter-in-law. After all, the latter was a founder of the neighborhood Baptist church. <strong>S</strong></p>
News & Features/Cover Story
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-palace-in-ginter-park/Content?oid=2383333&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383333
10
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyThe HR Departmenthttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-hr-department/Content?oid=2383316
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-hr-department/Content?oid=2383316Ed Harrington
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383315/cartoon49_hr_battlecat_laser.jpg" width="2536" height="2608" />
News & Features/Cartoon
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-hr-department/Content?oid=2383316&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383316
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyPunch Drunk: The Boozy Golden Tickethttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/punch-drunk-the-boozy-golden-ticket/Content?oid=2383313
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/punch-drunk-the-boozy-golden-ticket/Content?oid=2383313Jack Lauterback
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383312/punch_drunk.jpg" width="570" height="375" style="display:block; float:right;" />
<p>Charlie Bucket is all grown up.</p>
<p>He’s 40-something with a prominent belly, wearing a Miami Dolphins jersey and driving a Dodge Ram. He works as a manager at an auto body shop. The whole owning a chocolate factory thing never really panned out because of the litany of ongoing lawsuits involving the previous owner. Turns out Ol’ Wonka had trouble keeping his willy under wraps, and one Oompa Loompa finally had seen enough.</p>
<p>Charlie’s dream of finding a golden ticket and transforming his life evaporated like so many fizzy lifting bubbles.</p>
<p>Or has it?</p>
<p>A new golden-ticket consumer promotion has emerged, and this one definitely isn’t for kids. Although for men like Charlie and me — men predisposed to drinking a case of Bud Light in one sitting — it’s like being a child all over again.</p>
<p>Budweiser has hidden 37,000 golden-colored cans of its flagship beer, Bud Light, in cases across the country. Finding one is the first step for one lucky inebriated soul to win free Super Bowl tickets for life. </p>
<p>Sure, 37,000 cans seems like a lot — until you realize that in 2012 Bud Light sold about 269 million cases of beer. So your chances aren’t great, but they’re not astronomical like winning the lottery or getting attacked by a shark.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as finding a gold can. Those who find one must take a picture with it and post it to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or BudLight.com using the hashtags #SBTix4Life and #Sweeps. Each week, a single winner will be chosen to receive a pair of season tickets to an NFL team of his or her choice for 2017. A grand-prize winner will land Super Bowl tickets for life for the next 51 Super Bowls. </p>
<p>So again, your chances are slim to none, but so were Veruca Salt’s, and Mike Teevee’s, and Violet Beauregarde’s — and that didn’t stop those little brats from touring a creepy factory where a man with a predilection for candy and children held an entire race of orange people hostage, and it shouldn’t stop you either.</p>
<p>Augustus Gloop drank a lot of chocolate and then may or may not have died in a river of it, and you, sir or ma’am, will do the same thing, but with Bud Light.</p>
<p>Is Bud Light messing with people by offering up to 51 years of Super Bowl tickets knowing full well that there’s no way the drinker who wins will live that long? Probably, and that’s OK. If there’s anything hardy imbibers like me need on a regular basis, it’s false hope.</p>
<p>Those that don’t want to flood their bloodstream with the sweet golden lager can download a free gold can wrap from the company website and take a photo with it. But where’s the fun in that? I don’t download a citation for disorderly conduct when I want one of those. No way! I get out on the sidewalk and I earn it.</p>
<p>Young people these days don’t understand the value of a hard day’s drinking.</p>
<p>Now, how do Charlie Bucket, you and I go about finding one of these 37,000 gold cans? We could pull a Henry Salt and turn our prosperous nut factory into an around-the-clock party, in which our workers do nothing but rip open cases of Bud Light until they find a golden can, but that seems unrealistic, and frankly, I don’t even own a multinational legume conglomerate. </p>
<p>No, I think we’re just going to have to get lucky, and I’ve always found that the harder I work, the luckier I get. Or in this case, the harder I drink. </p>
<p>Like a forty-niner prospecting for gold in 1850s California, we must grow beards, wear silly hats and stop paying attention to basic hygiene needs. The empty cans alone will be enough to fill entire rooms of our houses, yet we will press on. We will drink Bud Lights on the seas and oceans, whatever the cost may be. We shall drink them on the beaches, we shall drink them on the landing grounds, we shall drink them in the fields and in the streets, we shall drink in the hills; we shall never surrender. Until one day, when we find that elusive golden can. </p>
<p>Only then, as we stagger about celebrating, as we sing in the streets, will we realize that we still have only a 1 in 37,000 chance to win Super Bowl tickets for life. <strong>S</strong></p>
<p><em>Jack Lauterback also is co-host of “Mornings with Melissa and Jack” on 103.7 Play weekdays from 6-9. Connect with him at letters@styleweekly.com, or on Twitter at @jackgoesforth. </em></p>
Opinion & Blogs/Punch Drunk
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/punch-drunk-the-boozy-golden-ticket/Content?oid=2383313&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383313
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyRVA Coffee Stainhttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/rva-coffee-stain/Content?oid=2383310
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/rva-coffee-stain/Content?oid=2383310Doug Orleski
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383309/cartoon49_rva_coffee_advent_cal.jpg" width="504" height="506" style="display:block; float:right;" />
News & Features/Cartoon
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/rva-coffee-stain/Content?oid=2383310&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383310
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyFood Review: Caboose Market and Café Deserves a Spot at the Front of the Trainhttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/food-review-caboose-market-and-cafe-deserves-a-spot-at-the-front-of-the-train/Content?oid=2383306
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/food-review-caboose-market-and-cafe-deserves-a-spot-at-the-front-of-the-train/Content?oid=2383306Karen Newton
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383305/food49_caboose.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>If you’ve been to the railroad tracks that are the backbone of the Center of the Universe, you’ve likely seen Caboose Market and Café, once Caboose Wine and Cheese — a stalwart since 1997, now featuring an Ed Trask train mural.</p>
<p>For nearly two decades, locals knew they could rely on the Caboose for a good selection of wine, beer and cheese as well as lively weekly tastings. But like some other wine shops we know, the siren song of the restaurant world eventually proved irresistible. </p>
<p>Walk through the bustling shop today, and you’ll ascend a few steps to a cafe with tawny brick walls, a wood-adorned kitchen and counter with stools, plus six tables that include a large community one, encircled by brilliant orange chairs and adorned with vases of fresh flowers. Mounted on the walls between windows streaming with sunlight are picaresque Ashland vignettes, and the vibe is open and inviting.</p>
<p>The menu leaves no doubt as to the Caboose’s intent: “We believe in coming together as a community to celebrate well-crafted and locally-sourced food and drink.” Indeed, it lists a baker’s dozen local suppliers, among them pastured pork from Pink House Farm in Mineral and chicken and eggs from Keenbell Farm in Montpelier. Cheese and charcuterie plates ($9.95-$15.95) are reminders of the wine shop’s roots as a destination for drinking noshes.</p>
<p>Three visits convince me that someone in the kitchen has a knack with soup ($3.95/$6.95) because both lentil-tomato, laden with carrots, collards, onion and multiple lentil types, as well as tomato parmesan, with fat pieces of sweet onion and sizable hunks of tomatoes, leave me singing their praises, spoon in hand.</p>
<p>Sidling up to the tapas portion of the menu, we try pepper delights ($3). But the spicy peppers that hold prosciutto and provolone taste undercooked and overpower their filling. Balsamic vinegar, raisins and toasted walnuts aren’t enough to overcome the blandness of smoked ricotta on toasted focaccia ($3.50), although it wouldn’t have taken much more than a generous sprinkle of sea salt to tie the flavors together. Still, the urge to finish the order is zip.</p>
<p>Far more alluring are Virginia cast-iron oysters ($9.95), a deeply satisfying bowl of Virginia oysters — that’s as specific as our server got about their provenance — in a sop-worthy broth of tomato sauce, pickled celery and Virginia ham. If you order nothing else, don’t miss this ode to the state. Hot cherry pepper butter and honey are all it takes to make grilled cornbread ($3.50) a standout, spicy and Southern in a way grandma never imagined.</p>
<p>On the other side of the menu are bountiful sandwiches such as the Gotu COTU ($9.95), with local never tasting as good as SausageCraft kielbasa with mustard made with Center of the Universe Brewing Co. beer, aioli and Farmstead Ferments kimchi between toasted slices of distinctive marble rye. Not a crust remains. </p>
<p>Distancing its ham and cheese from the pack, Caboose’s kitchen upgrades prosciutto and smoked Gouda with apple-onion jam and Dijon mustard for the Autumn Panini ($8.95), a sweet and salty mouthful. Sounding better than it eats, the Bombolini ($9.95) layers hot smoked salmon with Gruyère cheese and preserved lemon peel on ciabatta — the upshot is a sandwich with lemon as the star.</p>
<p>The Pink House ($8.95) delivers bite after bite of Virginia, with apples from Agriberry Farm, bacon from Pink House and crumbled gorgonzola over a plate of tasty local kale and arugula. Roasted Harlockson Farm shiitake mushrooms are the undisputed leading lady in the buratta salad ($8.95), taking over for ailing soft Italian cheese with a pronounced skin and no creaminess. The salad is further shored up by strong performances from roasted butternut squash, candied pecans, wine-soaked cranberries and balsamic-dressed arugula.</p>
<p>Not to restate the obvious, but you’re having a meal in the back of a market whose diverse shelves are a testament to thoughtfully chosen wines and creatively named beers — Escutcheon’s John Riggins 4th & 1 Pilsner, anyone? That makes the Caboose a natural for sipping as you eat. Chalkboards list wines by the glass ($5-$6), plus a cider and seven beers on tap ($5-$7), including beer flights ($6).</p>
<p>Service tends to the casual and inattentive — albeit with good intentions — and while a server takes your order tableside, you’ll pay at the register, market-style. If Ashland is your home, I’d focus on the kitchen’s strengths and enjoy the Caboose regularly. <strong>S</strong></p>
<p><strong>The Caboose Market and Café</strong><br>
Mondays-Thursdays 7 a.m.-8 p.m.; <br>
Fridays 7 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturdays 8:30 a.m.-10 p.m.<br>
108 S. Railroad Ave.<br>
798-2933<br>
<a href="http://caboosewine.com/">caboosewine.com</a></p>
Food & Drink/Food and Drink
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/food-review-caboose-market-and-cafe-deserves-a-spot-at-the-front-of-the-train/Content?oid=2383306&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383306
2
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklySet List: Four Musical Best-Bets, Dec. 5-11http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/set-list-four-musical-best-bets-dec-5-11/Content?oid=2383303
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/set-list-four-musical-best-bets-dec-5-11/Content?oid=2383303
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383301/night49_rev_horton_heat.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p><strong>Dec. 8: Thievery Corporation at the National</strong></p>
<p>The Washington-based DJ collective mixes a variety of deep music, including dub, trance, reggae, hip-hop, Middle Eastern, and Brazilian. Progressive in its multilingual politics — and getting those backsides shaking on the dance floor — the show is Thursday, Dec. 8, at 8 p.m. </p>
<p>Tickets cost $39.50-$43. Also on the bill, Colorado hip-hop duo the Reminders. <a href="http://www.thenationalva.com/">thenationalva.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Dec. 8: Gritty City is for the Kids 2 Toy Drive at the Camel</strong></p>
<p>Featuring many of Richmond’s “hip-hop elite,” including members of Gritty City, Charged Up, Company FTL and the Life Company. Also performing is Reks from Boston, famous for his work with DJ Premier and Action Bronson, along with Poe Mack from Roanoke. </p>
<p>Thursday, Dec. 8, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Donations of a toy or a $1 or more at the door. <a href="http://www.thecamel.org/">thecamel.org</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Dec. 9: Event Pick: Nels Cline, Larry Ochs and Gerald Cleaver Trio at Gallery5</strong></p>
<p>If you’ve never seen Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, he’ll make you rethink the possibilities of electric guitar — joined here by two other great experimental players, saxophonist Larry Ochs and drummer Gerald Cleaver. </p>
<p>Friday, Dec. 9, at 8 p.m., at Gallery5. Tickets cost $18. <a href="http://gallery5arts.org/newsitedesign/">gallery5arts.org</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Dec. 9: Event Pick: The Rev. Horton Heat, Nashville Pussy, Unknown Hinson and Lucky Tubb at the National</strong></p>
<p>Like a punk rocket out of rockabilly hell, the good Reverend returns to sing songs of tequila, wild women and space heaters. This was a barnburner last time at the Broadberry. Check it out Friday, Dec. 9, at the National. </p>
<p>The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $19.50-$23. <a href="http://www.thenationalva.com/">thenationalva.com</a>.<br>
</p>
Arts & Events/Night and Day
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/set-list-four-musical-best-bets-dec-5-11/Content?oid=2383303&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383303
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyEvent Pick: Unmasking Race and Reality in Richmond at Dogtown Dance Theaterhttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/event-pick-unmasking-race-and-reality-in-richmond-at-dogtown-dance-theater/Content?oid=2383299
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/event-pick-unmasking-race-and-reality-in-richmond-at-dogtown-dance-theater/Content?oid=2383299
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383298/night49_kelli_lemon.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
Dec. 7
Richmond Magazine holds a three-part learning series centered on local race issues from painful history to current-day coping strategies. The first presentation, with host Kelli Lemon of Coffee With Strangers runs 6:30-8:30 p.m. Dec. 7. Includes a dinner and film presented by Afrikana Independent Film Festival and James Parrish of the Bijou Film Center. A $5 donation will be accepted at the door.
Arts & Events/Night and Day
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/event-pick-unmasking-race-and-reality-in-richmond-at-dogtown-dance-theater/Content?oid=2383299&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383299
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyFour Steps to Richmond Holiday Cheerhttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/four-steps-to-richmond-holiday-cheer/Content?oid=2383294
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/four-steps-to-richmond-holiday-cheer/Content?oid=2383294
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383293/night49_elf.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p><strong>1. Put your tacky Christmas sweater to use.</strong> It’s the perfect thing to wear to <strong>“Elf, the Musical,”</strong> a family-friendly adaptation of the popular Will Ferrell film. Dec. 9-11 at the Altria Theatre. Tickets cost $38-$73 <a href="http://www.altriatheater.com/">altriatheater.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>2. Check your list twice.</strong> You can shop for local books and meet their authors at <strong>Hardywood Craft Park Brewery’s Brew Ho-Ho</strong> at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11. Ten percent of proceeds go to the Virginia Children’s Book Festival. <a href="http://hardywood.com/">hardywood.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>3. Crank up the festivities.</strong> <em>Style</em> joins with Quirk Hotel and Quirk Gallery to present <strong>A Quirky Christmas</strong>, featuring <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/619620748162726/">offbeat cocktails, music, shopping and gift-wrapping</a>. Free on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 5-7 p.m. at the Quirk Hotel.</p>
<p><strong>4. Relieve your stress.</strong> Secretly Y’all Presents <strong>“Scrooged: a Guide to the Holiday Season” at Veil Brewing Co.</strong> from 6-10 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12. Hear stories of holiday struggles, with proceeds benefitting the Possibilities Project — which helps young people who have aged out of foster care without being adopted. <a href="http://www.theveilbrewing.com/">theveilbrewing.com</a>.</p>
Arts & Events/Night and Day
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/four-steps-to-richmond-holiday-cheer/Content?oid=2383294&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383294
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyMovie Review: Based on a French Novel, "Elle" Needed to Return to the Sourcehttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/movie-review-based-on-a-french-novel-elle-needed-to-return-to-the-source/Content?oid=2383291
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/movie-review-based-on-a-french-novel-elle-needed-to-return-to-the-source/Content?oid=2383291Nicholas Emme
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383290/art49_film_elle.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>The director Paul Verhoeven tried to make the new thriller “Elle” his first American film since 2000. But when Hollywood’s leading actresses read the script and realized they’d be attacked, assaulted, spit on, sodomized by a video game avatar and forced to become a grandmother, the answer was a swift “no” — across the board, reportedly.</p>
<p>Verhoeven had to go to France, where he found Isabelle Huppert, and a surprisingly warm reception to the controversial material in the film, based on “Oh …,” a 2012 novel by Philippe Djian. (It may have helped Verhoeven a little that Djian is French, and set his novel in Paris.)</p>
<p>That story centers on Michele Leblanc (Huppert), a successful businesswoman who owns a video-game development company. But in the film’s opening minutes, all we know is that she suffers a gruesome rape by a masked intruder, an event from which she recovers with remarkable poise. So much poise, we can’t tell really what happened or how she feels. Was it a fake? Is Michele in shock? She doesn’t go to the cops, she doesn’t break down. Instead, she offhandedly tells her friends over dinner, right before the champagne is uncorked. They are aghast. She throws up her hands. Pass the menus.</p>
<p>The reasons for Michele’s apparent disinterest in her condition are slowly parceled out. Verhoeven, the once-prolific creator of such American shock fests as “Robocop” and “Basic Instinct,” knows how to tell a good story, and knows how to do it by telling stories within the story, in the subtext and right there on the surface. Michele, for reasons gradually revealed, has been the object of attacks before, in all forms. And the rape isn’t the only insult the film hurls at her. </p>
<p>She gets hate messages. A woman purposefully dumps food on her at a restaurant. An anonymous hacker puts her picture over the digital face of a video game character, and has it sexually assaulted as well. </p>
<p>Again, there’s a specific reason Michele is targeted, but that reason feels like it has layers, with the sense that the film isn’t only exploring this single woman’s embattlement to be free and successful, but the struggle of women in general. Shortly after the rape, Michele’s subordinate at her company, a tall, blond and tattooed young artist, gauchely challenges her at a meeting — a challenge she accepts, and swiftly puts down.</p>
<p>Michele is no pushover, but everything in her life begins to feel like an act of aggression or defense, whether muted and implied, or overt. You wonder what keeps her going, what keeps her sane, what keeps her fighting back — especially as the story piles up on her. The memory returns again and again. Calamities come out of the woodwork.</p>
<p>This force of will and multilayered personality are two of Michele’s strengths as well as those of the film. Michele isn’t a simplified victim. Sometimes, in fact, she’s the victimizer, as when she launches an immature and covert toothpick attack on the younger, new girlfriend (Vimala Pons) of her ex-husband (Charles Berling). Slowly, the story peels back Michele’s layers. We really see her side, not what we might imagine but the true point of view: Life is war, with setbacks and rallies. The goal is victory, or at least survival.</p>
<p>Whenever a movie was originally intended to be made in America, it’s tempting to look at it in terms of what might have been. Would the subject matter be so explicit? Probably not. Would the film be so confident to divert into interpersonal relationships instead of hurrying along with the suspense? Absolutely unlikely. Would it be so frank and candid, developing even the most minor story elements with such nuance? Look around you and answer that one for yourself.</p>
<p>Perhaps with Verhoeven at the helm, “Elle” would have retained some of its balance in any production scenario. But at 130 minutes and with English subtitles to read, the French version will feel languid to viewers who want their thrillers to pick up the pace. Some might find it too horrific or unbelievable, or both. </p>
<p>For others, it’s refreshing to find a film that offers so much while taking the time to let a mystery unfold. Each scene feels necessary, especially when you finally get through the most harrowing moments and can look back on the work as a whole. (R) 130 min. <strong>S</strong></p>
Arts & Events/Night and Day
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/movie-review-based-on-a-french-novel-elle-needed-to-return-to-the-source/Content?oid=2383291&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383291
1
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyA New Exhibit at the Valentine Explores Richmond Families Through the Centurieshttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/a-new-exhibit-at-the-valentine-explores-richmond-families-through-the-centuries/Content?oid=2383287
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/a-new-exhibit-at-the-valentine-explores-richmond-families-through-the-centuries/Content?oid=2383287Karen Newton
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383284/art49_valentine_valentine_family_portrait.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>The story of Virginia’s kinships begins, appropriately enough, with its first interracial couple, John Rolfe and Pocahontas.</p>
<p>“It’s All Relative: Richmond Families 1616-2016” allows the Valentine museum to chronicle the notion of family using a host of mediums — painting, sculpture and photography — as well as objects borrowed and from its extensive permanent collection.</p>
<p>Five media screens provide nonstop visuals pulled from the archives to illustrate the evolving definition of family to include work families, animal family members, fraternal societies, family businesses, gay families, church families and immigrant families.</p>
<p></p>
<p>“They all have a family story,” says David Voelkel, the Valentine’s Elise H. Wright curator of general collections. “Some also have drama, because being in a family is hard.” </p>
<p>Familiar names — Branch, Ukrop, Wickham, Poe and Clay — are sprinkled throughout the galleries. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden make an appearance as the first religious family.</p>
<p>A staid portrait of the Valentine family manages to be even more multigenerational when the subjects are posed under portraits of their long-gone elders. A photograph of the children at the Richmond Male Orphan Society, now the Virginia Home for Boys, illustrates a large, institutionalized family. Many images of well-to-do white Virginians include black family servants, often holding the youngest children.</p>
<p>Objects mined from the collection help convey a sense of family history. The first few pages of the Murchie family Bible are devoted to an extensive family genealogy record documenting 400 years of relations. A silver compote given to the Valentines on the occasion of their 25th anniversary was handed down through successive generations. </p>
<p>But it’s not only well-known names that make up the exhibit. Everyday scenes of decades gone by provide a more intimate glimpse into local family life. </p>
<p></p>
<p>A photograph taken at the same Stuart and Park avenue park that attracts parents and children today shows midcentury mothers chatting while surrounded by elaborate prams and carriages. One scene shows family members aboard their boat for a day of fun while another depicts a family celebrating Thanksgiving dinner. Byrd Park provides the setting for a fishing expedition with grandparent and grandchildren.</p>
<p>“It’s the arc of all these different stories,” Voelkel says, pointing to a 1942 photograph of Richmond-born Warren Beatty and his sister, Shirley MacLaine, as children. “It just shows how small a place Virginia is.” <strong>S</strong></p>
<p><em>“It’s All Relative: Richmond Families 1616-2016,”runs through June 18 at the Valentine, 1015 E. Clay St. thevalentine.org.</em></p>
Arts & Events/Arts and Culture
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/a-new-exhibit-at-the-valentine-explores-richmond-families-through-the-centuries/Content?oid=2383287&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383287
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyRichmond Painter Sally Bowring Listens to the Weather With a New Showinghttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmond-painter-sally-bowring-listens-to-the-weather-with-a-new-showing/Content?oid=2383282
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmond-painter-sally-bowring-listens-to-the-weather-with-a-new-showing/Content?oid=2383282Karen Newton
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383280/art49_art_bowring1.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>Sally Bowring hated canvas and oil paint because she couldn’t handle more than one relationship at a time.</p>
<p>“It wouldn’t dry as fast as I needed it to dry and it drove me insane,” she says in her cozy backyard studio on the North Side. “I couldn’t leave something to dry and move on to another painting because I can’t think that way. It’s one relationship at a time with painting for me.”</p>
<p>It had taken the former printmaker years to discover she was a painter. Decades after that mid-’70s discovery, she still paints by placing wooden panels flat on a table, occasionally hanging them on the wall to determine their progress before returning to her horizontal easel.</p>
<p>Her tools are as experimental as her methods. As a devoted admirer of painter Gerald Donato, she says something clicked in her head when she learned that he never limited himself to paintbrushes. “That opened up a world of possibilities for me,” she says — “rollers, squeegees, it’s no holds barred. It’s however the mark needs to be made.”</p>
<p>“Weather Report,” Bowring’s latest body of work, is the result of documenting the seasons and weather during her 70th year, which culminated recently in taking a full-time position at Virginia Commonwealth University as interim director of painting.</p>
<p>Acknowledging that the weather may seem mundane to a 20-something, by her age, it’s a topic of conversation and worthy of note.</p>
<p>“It’s about getting out and feeling the weather, being inspired by it,” she says of the 22 large-scale works that will be split between the show at Reynolds Gallery and another in January in Tidewater. “I have no interest in being current. I want to be timeless and make universal works.”</p>
<p></p>
<p>“Restless Rain” shows a symphony of grays with yellow undertones, illustrating the subtleties of what water does to the manmade environment. For her, “February Blue” reflects the hopefulness of a late winter sky. “That blue has a little gray in it,” she says. “It’s not a cerulean, summer blue, but it’s optimistic enough to remind us there’s hope.”</p>
<p>Walking by the hydrangeas in her yard in early summer, she says she was inspired to paint “June Mopheads” with washes of blue because she “wanted to capture the essence of them. Just seeing them made me want to go paint and open up some doors.”</p>
<p>By June, she was working on “In the Pink,” damned with faint praise by a student as “the first pink painting that hasn’t made me want to vomit.” Bowring has a history with pink paintings, having been informed by a grad school professor that she should refrain from using pink in her work because she’s a woman.</p>
<p>“Don’t tell me I can’t, because I will,” she says, laughingly, of “Life on the James.” The two 4-foot-by-8-foot panels in self-described “Pepto Bismol pink” became her final thesis. “And I was young. These have much more subtlety. This is where my pinks are now.”</p>
<p>Inspired by a quote from environmental activist Joanna Macy — “Is not impermanence the very fragrance of our days?” — Bowring says she secretly wishes “Weather Report” had a fragrance and a play list to help document the impermanence. But “not in a greedy, holding-on kind of way,” she adds.</p>
<p>Her soundtrack preference would be for composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass or Arvo Part, all of whom she plays in the studio while working, “because they create not so much music as sound, with periods of silence which I always really like,” she says. “There are moments like that in my paintings, where you can rest here and then move on.”</p>
<p>It’s all about getting up, having a day and finding as much time to paint as possible around her new full-time teaching position. She sees in the current generation of students a budding awareness of issues, but also the arrogance of youth, parts of which she admits enjoying.</p>
<p>“It’s simple stuff,” she says, “but it all amounts to something worthwhile. I don’t paint for shows, I just keep working. I haven’t made my one great painting yet, so I’ve got to live a lot longer.” <strong>S</strong></p>
<p><em>“Weather Report” runs through Dec. 23 at Reynolds Gallery, 1514 W. Main St. reynoldsgallery.com.</em></p>
Arts & Events/Arts and Culture
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmond-painter-sally-bowring-listens-to-the-weather-with-a-new-showing/Content?oid=2383282&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383282
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyRichmond's Engine and Frame Motorcycle Repair Shop Becomes a Community Hangouthttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmonds-engine-and-frame-motorcycle-repair-shop-becomes-a-community-hangout/Content?oid=2383278
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmonds-engine-and-frame-motorcycle-repair-shop-becomes-a-community-hangout/Content?oid=2383278Karen Newton
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383277/art49_motorcycles.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>Glam rock by T. Rex is blaring from the speakers, a Studio Two Three map of Richmond hangs overhead, and there’s a sign that reads, “I’d rather ruin my kidneys than have a smooth ride.” </p>
<p>The vibe at the Harley-Davidson repair shop space, Engine and Frame, is welcoming and organized, with parts behind the counter and bookshelves filled with motorcycle maintenance manuals, glossy bike magazines and the owner’s notebooks from his time in Harley school.</p>
<p>Pulling down a copy of “The Chopper: the Real Story,” owner Cory Manning waxes poetic about choppers as archetypal American creations, as typified by the film “Easy Rider.” It was an era “when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous,” he says.</p>
<p>From the beginning, Manning envisioned the Shockoe Valley space as a two-fer: a full-service Harley-Davidson repair shop in the same building as a nonprofit community motorcycle garage. There are close to two dozen do-it-yourself community garages scattered across the country, but none housed with a full-service repair business. </p>
<p>He says he was inspired to open the business and the garage after reading Matthew Crawford’s book “Shop Class as Soul Craft,” a rumination on the lost art of repairing things rather than disposing of them.</p>
<p>“I encourage people to come hang out,” he says, from the garage’s sunny parking lot where the shop dog Ruffie enthusiastically greets visitors. “That’s how I want the community shop to work, so at any given time, there are people here to help out others.”</p>
<p>He’s also offering hands-on workshops on aspects of motorcycle maintenance such as carburetors and winterizing a bike. “It’s one-on-one, so we do it together.” During the long, dark hours of the winter, the garage stays open late so people can use it after work.</p>
<p>One of eight motorcycle-riding board members, Laurie Lay says she sees the garage as a community asset because it provides a space, tools and knowledge to anyone wanting to learn or work on motorcycles.</p>
<p>“Upfront costs can deter someone from the beginning but with this concept,” she says. “You can get a bike and not have to spend more on having all the necessary specialized tools that you might use just once to adjust one part.”</p>
<p>Manning says bikers are almost guaranteed to return once they’ve experienced working on their bikes on a lift rather than on the floor.</p>
<p>“They tell me how great the lift is and I tell them, I know,” he says, laughing. Some buy monthly memberships, which provide bins for tools and parts, winter bike storage for apartment-dwellers and unlimited use — a sweet deal when a job likely will take more than 10 hours.</p>
<p>The goal is to make the process of working on a motorcycle more attainable by having all the tools, along with a trusted group of people to share hard-earned knowledge.</p>
<p>“There’s only so much you can get from watching YouTube videos,” Lay says about how motorcycles teach basic electrical wiring concepts that are used everywhere, along with patience, critical thinking skills and the importance of focus while working.</p>
<p>“When you get on a motorcycle that you’ve wrenched on,” she says, “your life is in your hands and in the brakes that you did or did not tighten well enough. There are few experiences in our lives that have such immediate results.”</p>
<p>Movie nights screening bike-ploitation films are scheduled as a way to create community by getting people to check out the space in hopes they’ll feel more comfortable and return. The garage also is taking on volunteers, both older experienced people and interns to learn the basics of maintenance, a process Manning likens to the apprenticeship of tattoo artists.</p>
<p>He notes that plenty of people are curious about riding motorcycles, but they don’t know others who do.</p>
<p>“This is a place where they can hang out and have fun,” he says. “Motorcycles make everything better, even just screaming down the road riding to work. That’ll wake your ass up in the morning. It makes you feel like you’re cheating death and that makes you feel alive.” <strong>S</strong></p>
<p><em>For information or to volunteer, contact info@engineandframe.com.</em></p>
Arts & Events/Arts and Culture
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/richmonds-engine-and-frame-motorcycle-repair-shop-becomes-a-community-hangout/Content?oid=2383278&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383278
1
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyPlan Emerges for a Residential Tower on Grace Streethttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/plan-emerges-for-a-residential-tower-on-grace-street/Content?oid=2383188
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/plan-emerges-for-a-residential-tower-on-grace-street/Content?oid=2383188Jackie Kruszewski
<img src="http://media1.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383186/rendering_1.jpg" width="864" height="568" />
<p>Developers have moved a step closer to their vision of reshaping the Grace Street corridor with a mixed-use development that could cost as much as $100 million.</p>
<p>The Richmond Planning Commission approved the sale of city-owned land across from the Carpenter Theatre, an L-shaped parcel encompassing most of the block between Grace, Franklin, North Sixth and North Seventh streets.</p>
<p><a href="https://richmondva.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2884233&GUID=85C8934A-7211-4BC0-83C7-8AC5B7CA29B3">If City Council approves the plan Monday</a>, the 1.6-acre site will be sold to City Center Development LLC for $3.95 million. </p>
<p>Requirements for the sale include providing at least 800 parking spaces, with 600 available to the public, 28,000 square feet of ground-level retail space and 372,000 square feet of residential or commercial space — or a combination.</p>
<p>The retail space will face Grace Street and North Sixth, and the parking deck will be the five stories above that — “screened in, in the contemporary fashion,” says Eric Saylor of Price Studios, the architect for the project.</p>
<p>The first phase of parking and retail must be completed within 20 months, and the second phase within five years. Residential use or such commercial projects as a hotel are still being considered. The project also could include one tower or two.</p>
<p>The final project must be taxable for at least $86 million, meaning the city could reap $1 million in property taxes.</p>
<p>“It’s a contemporary building,” says Robert P. Englander Jr. of CathFord Consulting. He touts outdoor accessibility of the planned residential spaces, “which we think is missing in the urban core today.”</p>
<p>An art deco-style parking garage built in 1927 is included in the plan. The executive director of Historic Richmond, Cyane Crump, supported maintaining the historic facade at the meeting Monday.</p>
<p>“We are sensitive to the nature of the building,” Englander says. “The facade is magnificent.” </p>
<p>The parking garage is scheduled to be removed, but Englander says developers are willing to maintain the facade, which will be incorporated into the new parking facility. A garden terrace also is planned for the roof of the parking deck.</p>
<p>Formed last year, City Center Development is a partnership of CathFord Consulting and Taylor & Parrish. They also collaborated on the Turning Basin building by the canal in Shockoe Slip in 2000. And the latter is working on the Main Street train shed project. The architect on the City Center project is Price Studios.</p>
<p>The land and improvements were assessed at $6.36 million in 2017, but Englander cites the “functional obsolescence” of the parking deck. Demolition costs account for the difference between value and sale price, Englander says.</p>
<p>Asked if they’re expecting resistance to the project, Englander says no: “But one never knows.”</p>
News & Features/News and Features
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/plan-emerges-for-a-residential-tower-on-grace-street/Content?oid=2383188&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383188
10
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style WeeklyMayor-Elect Stoney Keeps Richmond’s Chief Administrative Officerhttp://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/mayor-elect-stoney-keeps-richmonds-chief-administrative-officer/Content?oid=2383183
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/mayor-elect-stoney-keeps-richmonds-chief-administrative-officer/Content?oid=2383183Staff
<img src="http://media2.fdncms.com/styleweekly/imager/u/original/2383181/levar_stoney_podium_1_.jpg" width="850" height="559" />
<p>Selena Cuffee-Glenn will keep her job as Richmond’s chief administrative officer, Mayor-elect Levar Stoney said during a news conference this afternoon to announce the first senior staff of his administration.
<p>Cuffee-Glenn, a Chesapeake native, came to her Richmond post in 2015 with experience as city manager in Suffolk. She also worked at the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority. She’s been working <a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-frustrating-embarrassing-story-behind-richmond-city-halls-mind-numbing-financial-mayhem/Content?oid=2265997">to get the city’s financial reports cleaned up</a>.
<p>In the political section of Style Weekly's most recent Power List, <a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/2015-power-list-richmond-politics/Content?oid=2235348">Cuffee-Glenn ranked No. 3</a>.
<p>Stoney also announced his appointment of Lincoln Saunders as acting chief of staff. Saunders, a native of the Northern Neck, holds the same position for first lady Dorothy McAuliffe.
<p>“Lincoln has both the governmental experience, and the fresh perspective and energy needed to help our incoming administration achieve the goals we laid out during my campaign,” Stoney says in a release.
<p>He says Cuffee-Glenn “will also be charged with assembling and developing the team of skilled and committed professionals needed throughout the organization to implement my bold vision and make Richmond a AAA bond rated city.”
News & Features/News and Features
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/mayor-elect-stoney-keeps-richmonds-chief-administrative-officer/Content?oid=2383183&show=comments#readerComments
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/Rss.xml?id=comments&oid=2383183
0
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 01:00:00 -0500Style Weekly